Antioch on the Orontes (Greek: Αντιόχεια η επί Ορόντου; Latin: Antiochia ad Orontem) was one of the most important cities of the Graeco-roman period. The ancient city stood on the eastern side of the Orontes River. It is currently partly covered by the modern city of Antakya.
It was founded in the 4th century BC by Seleucus I Nicator. Antioch eventually rivaled Alexandria as the chief city of the Near East and played a particularly strong role in the late Empire.

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Thursday, January 19, 2012

I have not dwelt much on the pre-Roman history of Antioch mainly because there is so little physical evidence excepting the political history of the fractious Seleucid Dynasty.

One tidbit appeared to us this week about Alexander II Zabinas (Greek Ἀλέξανδρoς Zαβίνας), ruler of the Greek Seleucid kingdom, was a counter-king who emerged in the chaos following the Seleucidian loss of Mesopotamia to the Parthians.

The part of his story which interests me most is that when he fled to Antioch in 123 BC, he reputedly plundered several temples, including that of Zeus, reputedly to pay his troops. He is said to have joked about melting down a statuette of the goddess of victory Nike which was held in the hand of a Zeus statue, saying "Zeus has given me Victory".

He is pictured on the obverse of this coin holding the statuette of Nike in his hand.

Enraged by his impiety the Antiochenes cast Zabinas out of the city. He soon fell into the hands of robbers, who delivered him up to Antiochus, by whom he was put to death, in 122 BC.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

On the 2nd of January, 2012, in an article by Sindya N. Bhanoo the New York Times reported on the unravelling of a cruse scroll found in the 1930s by the Excavation Committee. It clearly represents a good example of the treasures that lie awaiting calssification and proper examination in the basements of Princeton University.

The article says:

"A vegetable seller named Babylas was the target of an alarming curse nearly 2,000 years ago. Written on a lead tablet found in Antioch, one of the largest cities in the Roman Empire, the curse calls on the gods to tie up the hapless greengrocer, then “drown and chill” his soul.

The curse is described in the German journal Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik by Alexander Hollmann, a classicist at the University of Washington who studies Greek and Roman magic. The curse was written on both sides of the tablet. One side calls upon the god Iao to bind Babylas; the other side addresses multiple gods and calls for the tablet to be thrown down and “killed” in a well — followed, in the same way, by Babylas. “It also shows where he lives,” Dr. Hollmann said. “It’s all sort of designed so the gods know exactly where to find him.” Although the author of the curse is not mentioned in the writing, Dr. Hollmann speculates that it may have been a rival businessman. “This is a pretty serious curse,” he said. “And we have other evidence that these kinds of practices went on.” The tablet was found in a well in the 1930s, presumably the same one it was dropped in. Since then, along with many other items excavated from Antioch, which lies near Turkey’s Syrian border, the tablet has been at the Princeton University Art Museum. Curse tablets like this one have shown up in Rome, in Carthage in Africa and throughout the ancient Mediterranean region, said Dr. Hollmann, who has deciphered one other such tablet from Antioch and is working on six others. “They are so similar, because professionals were using magic books that circulated,” he said. “These had templates that were used for hundreds of years.”"